The Death and Life of Malls, a Video Friday Reflection.

malls, Retail, urbanism

So we’ve spent all week talking about the nature of retail. Yet, today’s videos represent how much retail is a cycle, where America has led the way in sprawl, yet is now realizing why it’s not such a good idea. The first video is a montage of America’s dead malls, with voiceover that directly addresses how they are now being exported overseas and overbuilt just like in the US. That video and voiceover, by Scottish writer Ewan Morrison, is part of a greater collection, Tales from the Mall, which was released in 2012 (paperback coming this September) and highlights all that goes into running a shopping mall through fiction, nonfiction, journalistic reports, photo collages, and in the e-book version, links to videos, such as the one seen here. The second video is an advertisement for one of these new international malls, that seems to just be a dubbed over advertisement for an American mall.

And with that, we close our chapter on retail for now. I’ll see you on Tuesday as we get ready for Buffalo and CNU 22.

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About Kristen Jeffers

Kristen Jeffers has always been interested in how cities work. She’s also always loved writing things. She went off to a major state university, got a communication degree and then started a more professional Blogger site. Then, in her graduate seminar on urban politics, along with browsing the urbanist blogosphere, she realized that her ideas should have a stronger, clearer voice, one that reflects her identity as a Black southern woman. And with that The Black Urbanist blog was born. Seven years, one Twitter account, one self-published book, two podcasts and a litany of speeches and urban planning projects later, here we are.